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"Inside the life of Frida Kahlo" photo exhibition at Villa Ciani in Lugano, Switzerland
11 April 2025 | 01 June 2025After an exhibition in Bellinzona, the photographic exhibition narrating Frida Kahlo through the photos taken by her closest friend, the artist Lucienne Bloch, arrives in Lugano.
‘I hate you": these are the first words Frida Kahlo addresses to Lucienne Bloch when the two meet during a party that New York's Moma organised in honour of Diego Rivera in 1931.
At that time Rivera was the great Mexican muralist being courted by the American establishment, Frida Kahlo his young wife and still little-known artist, and Lucienne Bloch an equally young artist. Lucienne and Diego Rivera stood side by side the entire evening and the harmony between the two was obvious. What Frida did not yet know was that Lucienne, unlike the other women who gravitated around her cumbersome husband, would become one of her most loyal and trusted friends, the one who would stand by her side when she miscarried, when she lost her mother, when she discovered Diego's betrayal with her sister Cristina, and even when she achieved success with her first solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York.
And so Lucienne's camera immortalises an increasingly sympathetic Frida and recounts her love, politics and art in a candid, intimate and close-up manner: Frida smiling in the morning, Frida kissing Diego, Frida joking in front of the camera.
There are many points that bind the two women: both artists, both strong and determined women, daughters of a complex century, yet free from any kind of social bridle. Through these images, Lucienne Bloch offers us the opportunity to capture the true essence of Frida Kahlo, that which only such an intimate and personal relationship is able to bring out.
This exhibition is a fascinating glimpse into the historical period and social context in which the two women lived; an all-round insight into one of the most beloved artists of all time, an icon of feminism, a symbol of independence and vitality, whose legacy, 70 years after her death, still inspires modern generations.
Info and logistiscs at the link below.
